1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements in gas-fired heating appliances, and it relates more particularly to a new baffle assembly for insertion into the heat exchanger tube of a heating appliance to enhance the heating efficiency of the combustion gases passing through the heat exchanger tube.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous heating appliances are available for consumer, commercial or industrial uses which rely on heating gas as an energy source. Many of these appliances include one or more burners connected to a regulated supply of heating gas and configured to direct combustion by-products into associated heat exchanger tubes. The combustion by-products flow through the heat exchanger tubes transferring heat to the walls thereof and are discharged to a flue box or otherwise exhausted to the environment. The heat which is transferred to the heat exchanger tubes may thereby be transferred to various media such as air or liquids of some type surrounding the exterior of the heat exchanger tubes.
One such heating appliance which has achieved success in recent times is the atmospheric, gas-fired, commercial deep fat fryer. Gas-fired deep fat fryers are used in numerous commercial and institutional cooking establishments to prepare fried foods of various kinds. Typically, such an appliance includes a vat for containing a relatively large quantity of cooking oil. The cooking oil may be advantageously heated by immersed heat exchanger tubes extending through the vat at preselected locations.
A disadvantage of known atmospheric gas-fired fryers is that they operate at relatively low energy efficiency. This is necessarily the result of atmospheric burning conditions which require the heat exchanger tubes to exhaust combustion by-products before the entire heating value of the by-products has been fully expended or transferred through the walls of the heat exchanger tubes to the media which is to absorb the heat input. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a gas-fired heating appliance which exhibits substantially enhanced thermal efficiency through economically manufacturable means.